In this episode of Accrued, hosts Tedd Huff and Colton Pond chat with Scott Johnson, the Senior VP of Business Development at Galileo Financial Technologies. Scott shares his experiences and insights from his 20 years at Galileo, a leading FinTech platform owned by SoFi Technologies. They discuss how Galileo powers major players like Chime and Monzo, and the challenges and opportunities in the FinTech industry.

Scott tells a funny story from Galileo's early days when the company almost had a disaster during a visit from MasterCard due to a water leak. He also talks about the company's decision to publish APIs over a decade ago, which was a bold move at the time and helped them grow significantly.

The conversation covers Galileo's role in the FinTech landscape, focusing on their expansion into Latin America and the importance of modernizing banking infrastructure. Scott highlights how Galileo's technology supports over 151 million accounts and how their products help banks and FinTech companies offer better services.

They also discuss the impact of AI and machine learning in finance, particularly in personalization and fraud prevention. Scott mentions Galileo's AI chatbot, Connecta, and their payment risk platform, which helps reduce fraud and save costs for their clients.

Another key topic is the importance of long-term partnerships and a consultative approach in FinTech. Scott emphasizes how Galileo supports its clients to navigate challenges and achieve sustainable growth.

Finally, they touch on the acquisition of Galileo by SoFi and how it has opened new opportunities for the company. Scott shares insights on international expansion, especially the unique challenges and considerations when entering new markets like Latin America.

This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone interested in the future of FinTech, the role of AI, and the importance of modern banking technology. Whether you're a FinTech enthusiast or just curious about how technology is changing finance, this conversation with Scott Johnson offers a lot to learn.

Key Highlights

The Secret to Galileo's Success: Early Challenges and Big Wins

Discover how a tiny office with just four server racks faced a major water leak during a critical MasterCard tour and how quick thinking turned a potential disaster into a memorable moment in Galileo's early days.

APIs: The Game-Changer for FinTech

Learn about the bold decision to publish APIs over a decade ago, a move that attracted a range of companies with unique use cases, helping shape the future of FinTech.

Navigating the 2008 Financial Crisis

Find out how Galileo managed to survive the 2008 financial crisis by betting on long-term partnerships and supporting companies with great product offerings, even delaying invoicing to keep them afloat.

Expanding into Latin America: Key Considerations

Understand the strategic move to expand into Latin America, the challenges faced, and the economic viability of entering different markets with tailored financial solutions.

Personalized Finance: AI and Machine Learning at Work

Explore how AI and machine learning are used to deliver highly personalized financial experiences, from chatbots sensing frustration to advanced payment risk platforms reducing fraud.

The Power of Modern Banking Cores

See why modernizing banking cores is crucial for offering innovative products and services, and how legacy systems are holding back financial institutions from competing effectively.

Boots on the Ground: Successful International Expansion

Learn why having employees in local markets is essential for successful international expansion and how Galileo ensures they are truly committed to new regions.

Unique Financial Products: Buy Now, Pay Later Options

Discover Galileo's cool "buy now, pay later" feature that allows users to turn past purchases into installment payments, offering flexibility and control over their finances.

Tailored Card Controls for Teens

Check out how Galileo enables parents to set specific spending limits for their teens, such as allowing purchases only at certain stores, ensuring safety and control.

The Importance of Adaptability in Acquisitions

Get insights into how Galileo's acquisition by SoFi provided new opportunities and the key role of adaptability in making acquisitions successful and beneficial for both parties.

Takeaways (five takeaways) 

🚀 1️⃣ Learn How to Handle Crises with Quick Thinking!

Facing unexpected problems? Quick thinking can turn potential disasters into success stories. A fast response to challenges, like a sudden water leak, can save the day and even impress important clients.

💡 2️⃣ API Publishing: A Bold Move That Pays Off Big!

Publishing APIs can attract a diverse range of clients with unique needs. This strategic decision opens up new opportunities and helps in growing your business by meeting various market demands.

🌍 3️⃣ The Secret to Successful International Expansion!

Thinking of going global? Ensure you have local presence and employees on the ground to truly commit to new markets. This strategy helps in understanding and adapting to regional needs effectively.

🤖 4️⃣ Enhance Security with AI-Driven Fraud Prevention!

AI and machine learning can drastically reduce fraud. Implementing advanced risk platforms that analyze spending patterns and behaviors can protect your business and save costs by preventing fraudulent activities.

🔍 5️⃣ Customize Financial Products for Better User Control!

Offering customizable financial products, like post-purchase installment options, can provide users with more control over their spending. This flexibility meets customer needs and enhances their financial experience.

Links: 

Guest's Company: www.galileo-ft.com

Guest's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/galileo-financial-technologies

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/galileo-financial-technologies

Fintech Confidential

YouTube: https://fintechconfidential.com/watch

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Timestamps:

02:52 Welcome to Accrued: Unraveling the World of LendTech

07:25 Meet Scott Johnson: The Legend Behind Galileo's Success

07:54 The Day Galileo Almost Flooded

09:30 Decoding Galileo's Growth: From Start-Up to FinTech Powerhouse

13:26 The Evolution of FinTech: A 20-Year Journey with Scott Johnson

19:33 The Future of Banking: Modern Cores and Global Expansion

27:54 Latin America's FinTech Revolution: A Beacon for Global Banking

31:27 Hyper Growth in Cashless Transactions: A Global Perspective

32:25 The Strategic Move: Galileo's Expansion into Latin America

32:57 Navigating International Expansion: Insights and Challenges

36:03 Innovative Financial Solutions: From Credit Products to Payment Systems

38:11 Personalization in FinTech: How Galileo Powers Unique Customer Experiences

49:12 The Future of Banking: AI, Machine Learning, and Beyond

52:53 Acquisition Insights: Galileo's Journey with SoFi

55:19 Wrapping Up: The Future of FinTech and Personalization

55:45 Disclaimer and Final Thoughts

Supporters

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About:

Guest 

Scott Johnson: Scott Johnson is responsible for expanding Galileo’s client relationships and scaling partnerships and business development functions for additional growth. Johnson has led Galileo’s growth strategy and expanded its payments product offerings to include debit, credit, commercial, virtual, cryptocurrency, multicurrency, and a number of hybrid and custom solutions. Prior to joining Galileo, Johnson worked in product management at American Express and GE Consumer Finance and built internet software at Sybase, which was later acquired by SAP. Johnson graduated from the University of Utah School of Business.

Galileo Financial Technologies LLC: Galileo Financial Technologies LLC is a financial technology company that enables fintechs, banks, emerging and established brands to build differentiated financial solutions that deliver exceptional customer-centric experiences. Through modern open APIs, Galileo’s flexible, secure, scalable, and fully integrated platform drives progress across payments and financial services. Trusted by digital banking heavyweights, early-stage innovators, and enterprise clients alike, Galileo supports issuing physical and virtual payment cards, mobile push provisioning, tailored and differentiated financial products, and more across industries and geographies.

Hosts: 

Tedd Huff: Tedd Huff is the Founder of Voalyre and DD3 Media, professional services and advisory firms focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and producer of Fintech Confidential.

Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

Colton Pond: Colton Pond is a seasoned marketing executive with a strong fintech and financial services background. In his latest role, Colton is the CMO for LoanPro's API-first lending platform, aiming to meet the increasing market demands. His track record includes a significant tenure at Truv, where he led the marketing team to achieve a 300% growth in year-over-year revenue. Colton has also held key marketing and sales positions at MX, Lucid, and HealthEquity, demonstrating his ability to drive success and innovation within the fintech sector.

Diamond D3, Media: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally

Now, the biggest differentiator with Galileo,

in my opinion, is their people.

And today we have joined, we have Scott Johnson.

The senior vice president of business development at Galileo, he's here to

share with us his unique perspective on evolution of financial technologies and

how Galileo is enabling the future of

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: digital finance.

MasterCard went on a tour of the building and I was the first

guy taking them on the tour.

The company above had had a Blood in their fridge and we had water

coming down into our data center.

You're not going to believe this.

There's water coming in the data center.

Go upstairs and get it fixed.

So they ran upstairs as fast as possible.

Got it fixed upstairs.

Grab some towels and paper towels.

They're cleaning water up.

It's really interesting to see how much things have changed

and how much things have grown.

You know, in the last 20 years and kind of some of the key theme that I think

where Galileo has really fit in the ecosystem, you know, we like to think of

ourselves as the AWS of Fintech 14, 14 years ago, we decided to publish our API.

All of a sudden, we had all sorts of different use cases and constructs

and companies coming to us that we really hadn't even dreamed about that.

We're like, Oh, well, can I get your APIs to do this?

We're like, so far, our parent company.

acquisition of Technicis, which is now part of part of Galileo

with their modern banking core.

And that was a very key decision that was made to do just kind of Ted as

you were talking about, we decided and took a kind of a different approach.

And I think that we're seeing it play out in the marketplace where

a lot of these lines are starting to blur or kind of blend together.

Maybe in the strategic bet.

To, to really focus on a modern banking core technology.

That is one of the areas where I think what's a little bit almost scary.

I was at a conference a couple years ago, I will not name the conference, nor will

I name the bank that I was talking to.

They were talking about how few programmers they really have

that still can write cobalt code.

Now, Coatwall was, you know, from the 50s, 60s, 70s.

Now listen, I love the 60s and 70s.

That guy's born in the 70s.

I love the music from the 70s.

I just don't want an 8 track player.

There's some really cool specific things that we do.

We call it buy now, pay later, post pay.

If you do 10 transactions in a month, and you're like, you know what, that

transaction number three and number seven, I want to make that actually

an installment after the fact.

Some of the ways we partner with Lone Crow, But we've got customers who they

want to be able to say again, like my 16 year old, I want him to be able to

eat at Chipotle that's three or four blocks away from my house, but not

necessarily 30 blocks from my house.

Evolution of my experience at Galileo and really going from like

a true startup now to where we had the acquisition in 2020 by SoFi.

We're now part of a bank holding company.

So one of the things that's so just fascinating to go through

is not only from kind of like.

like, oh my gosh, there's water coming into the data center to now,

like, how do we stay compliant, you know, across everything that we do?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential: Welcome to Fintech Confidential, bringing

you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

Welcome to Accrued, the FinTech Confidential series presented by LoanPro.

In this series, we're deconstructing the complexities of lending and exploring

compliance, optimization, modernization, and personalization through the insightful

conversations with the industry's best.

I'm Tedd Huff here with my co host Colton Pond.

We'll be guiding you through this intricate lending world, whether

you're deep into LendTech or just intrigued by how technology is reshaping

lending, you're in the right place.

Now let's dive into another episode of Accrued.

Thanks, Tedd.

It's good to see you again.

The hair always looks great.

The necklaces are great.

So I, I'm excited for, uh, we were actually having a conversation before

this, the three of us around how we could do a whole podcast episode on your hair.

So eventually we'll need more insights

there.

Uh, Scott and I want to know, but for now excited to dive in with Scott today.

Definitely.

Well, you know, I try to bring the good vibes.

So we'll, we'll start with that one.

And

today talking about good vibes today, we have a company that is known for

many decades as leaders in innovation.

And it's none other than Galileo.

It's a financial technology platform owned and operated

independently by SoFi Technologies.

They're a driving force in FinTech landscape.

And Galileo is one of the few marketplace platforms that not only combines banking

and processing, but it powers some of the FinTech elite like Chime and Monzo

with their most dynamic solutions.

Their robust platform enables FinTech companies to launch, scale and

enhance their offerings efficiently.

From payments and card issuing, lending to their cyber bank platform

and risk solutions help manage this intricate payment system landscape.

Now it's impressive that Galileo's technology not only underpins all

of these seamless transactions.

But it's for over 151 million accounts that rely on them every single day.

Now, the biggest differentiator with Galileo, in my opinion.

Is their people.

And today we have joining us today and Colton kind of snuck

it in a little bit here earlier.

We have Scott Johnson, the senior vice president of business

development at Galileo, and he has a rich background in product

management and strategic innovation.

Scott's been a key player in steering Galileo through its remarkable

growth in the FinTech area.

And his leadership has guided Galileo through its expansion into new

technological frontiers, offering scalable and secure financial solutions

that empower banks, FinTech startups, and enterprises all around the globe.

Today, he's here to share with us his unique perspective on evolution of

financial technologies and how Galileo is enabling the future of digital finance.

Scott, it is a pleasure to have you with us today.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Well, Tedd, Colton, I really

appreciate that intro.

I'm super excited to be here today.

Excited to talk a little bit more about some of the things

I'm very passionate about, about FinTech and banking and payments.

So again, thanks for having me on.

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Check out LoanPro.

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their tech stack with LoanPro.

Now I'm going to switch gears just here real quick.

Colton, you and the folks at LoanPro been working really closely with Galileo.

Can you give us a suspect perspective on Scott and don't

forget how LoanPro and

Yeah,

are working together.

Well, I have a unique perspective because.

we have the blessing of having some rock stars who previously worked

at Galileo and now work at LoanPro.

So I hear from them about this legend and myth, Scott Johnson

and who he is and the impact that he's had over 20 years at Galileo.

And like, uh, people like Susan Chafin, who.

Uh, is very blunt and very honest with every opinion that she shares.

So I know that if she says positive things about Scott, it's incredible.

Um, Scott, what I would love to know is you've been at Galileo 20

years now, uh, give or take, right?

What employee number were you at Galileo?

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: it's been just about, it'll

be 20 years next month.

And I'm thinking, and I'm right around that I'm like 20 or 21 or 22, and

we've got close to about 2, 200 now.

So it's amazing to see how much has grown over the last, uh, over the last 20 years.

I'm going to go off the cuff a little bit, as I like to do as

Tedd knows, but uh, tell us one of your favorite early day stories at Galileo.

20 years is a long time growing the company and eventually

being acquired by SoFi.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Okay.

I'm going to tell you a great story.

And this is early, early days, um, back in 2004, when I started for

Galileo, it'll take just a second.

We had just certified to be a MasterCard endpoint.

And MasterCard had come out and we had a tiny little office.

We had at that point, four server racks is all is what we

were running our system with.

Okay.

And MasterCard went on a tour of the building and I was the first

guy taking them on the tour.

And I walked by our data center and you're not going to believe this.

The company above had had a flood in their fridge, and we had water

coming down into our data center as I'm taking MasterCard on the tour,

I opened the door and I see that I turn around like, Hey, you know what?

Let's save the best for last.

Why don't we go and I'm going to take you on a tour of the rest of the

building introduce you to some people.

I walked by a few folks.

I said.

You're not going to believe this.

There's water coming in the data center, go upstairs and get it fixed.

So they ran upstairs as fast ball, got it fixed upstairs, grab some

towels and paper towels, they're cleaning water up, we walk around.

And then all of a sudden I kind of get the signal like this.

I take him back.

I'm like, Hey, let's go do this.

So I was tap dancing the whole time.

showing them, Hey, look at the beautiful view of the

mountains, all that good stuff.

So just kind of the crazy things that you go through, um, in

the early stages of a company.

But just a lot of fun in some of those early days.

It was really just the wild, wild west of payments and some of the things

that were going on, but amazing to see kind of some of the foundations.

That were built at that point and how much that's kind of, we've

used to grow into the future.

It's fun with how scrappy you need to get at the beginning.

I love that aspect.

And it's also cool to look back and be like, man, we've come a long way.

Like we've achieved a lot.

So today, especially I'm stoked to dig into your 20 years at Galileo

and, and your insights on FinTech, financial services, ecosystem,

the future, what that looks like.

And the impact of like where we're headed and insights that folks in financial

services can draw from your expertise.

So Tedd, let's kick it off.

well, Scott, I want, I want us to kind of maybe move forward past

the, uh, the raining server but still reflect that back on, on the last

couple of decades, and and the financial FinTech landscape and how it has changed.

for you to Share your perspective on the role that Galileo has played

in this evolution of FinTech.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: It's really interesting to see how

much things have changed and how much things have grown, you know, in the

last 20 years and kind of some of the key themes that I think where Galileo

has really fit in the ecosystem.

You know, we like to think of ourselves as the AWS of FinTech, right?

We like to think of us as kind of at the center of, of so much of the activity

that's going on in, in FinTech and the types of companies that we work with.

And really is, is I go back and kind of reflect on a kind of

how we got to this, this place.

I think kind of one of the major things that is, that has been such a change for

everyone, as we know, are these, are these great devices here and what happened with

us, just like anyone is, is, you know, we get smartphones and mobile technology.

Well, where we really kind of made this strategic decision was, you know, 13, 14

years ago, we decided to publish our APIs.

And that was the probably kind of one of those key turning points is I go

back and look and I mean, now it's like, oh, well, published API is no big deal.

Well, 12, 13, 14 years ago, that was pretty novel stuff.

And what was so fascinating as I go back and kind of look at the journey of where

we've been is once we made that decision to do that, all of a sudden we had.

All sorts of different use cases and constructs and companies coming

to us that we really hadn't even dreamed about that were like, Oh,

well, can I use your APIs to do this?

And we're like, That that'll work.

And then this and that, and all of a sudden, what was so fun is to see like

all of these different types of companies and now looking at against a lot of the

world class, you know, FinTechs that we work with that run on our platform.

And that's why we kind of look at this and, and kind of see where we played

in this space is really enabling these companies, you know, like, like one, you

know, one of our partners chime, it's amazing to see when they came to us.

They didn't have any customers.

And now they've disclosed they've got tens of millions of customers and,

do an incredible amount of volume.

And so it's been really, really fun to just kind of help them through that

journey as we've grown and they've grown and seeing now, you know, again,

some of these, these incredible names that we work with in the marketplace.

13 years ago, Scott, y'all were probably one of the first

companies to publicly post your API documentation, That wasn't a thing,

And now, as you mentioned, every tech company that has an API first solution,

or even dreams about having an API first solution, has some level of API

docs publicly available on readme or other resources, which is awesome.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Yeah, it's really interesting, Colton,

because, you know, again, I know it sounds like so natural and normal now.

That was a huge kind of risk and a kind of a big leap of faith because it was

like, well, You know, we're basically standing out for the whole industry

now, like, here's exactly how we do it.

Here's everything.

this is, you know, everything that we've built from these APIs, but it was amazing.

It was at the time kind of a big leap of faith, but it was a key

strategic decision that we made.

That I think really enabled a lot of the growth that we had across the

business was that decision to do that.

And then just continuing to enhance and, add to those APIs

and just keep that documentation.

that's one of our core competencies we feel as having just the

easiest user experience possible within that documentation.

Listen, I'm a marketing and sales guy.

I think even I might be able to kind of plug in some of that code,

given how easy it is, I can do

it, then pretty much anybody can do it.

so along those lines, Scott, what I like to do often, especially with

folks that have been FinTech, you've been, you're probably one of the longest

people in what we consider FinTech today,

what are some of the challenges that you faced in the early days of Galileo?

And what are some of those challenges you face today?

And how are they different?

And how has the industry evolved over the past 20 years?

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: it's interesting.

So I go back and look at, I can't believe, like you said, that I've

been at the same company for 20 years.

I will say this, I can't believe how fast it goes when you're

doing what you enjoy doing.

And so that's one of those things that it's like, I hear it and people are

like, wow, 20 years with one company.

And I'm like, yeah, but it's amazing when you enjoy what you're doing, how

fast this goes, but it's interesting as I go back and kind of look at some of

the challenges and always didn't think about what that means for the future.

listen, it was no fun in 2008.

During the financial crisis.

I mean, there were days when we were like, okay, which companies are the banks that

we're working with are going to be around?

those were some scary days.

And we've had times knowing that in that timeframe that we look at, and

I go back and I'm like, wow, that was a little bit, a little bit scary.

But I, I then go, go look at that now.

And I kind of think about what does that mean for the future?

even right now, I mean, there's some challenges in the marketplace,

I mean, interest rates, I mean, Colton and Tedd, we know with LoanPro, I mean,

what, you know, being in the, in the, in the lending credit, you know, servicing

space, so to speak, a higher interest rate environment can be challenging.

And so it's interesting to go

back and look at some of the playbook that we did back then, and some of those

challenges that we've seen and kind of some of the ways that that I think helps

with the roadmap as we look to the future.

I think one of the things that we really focused on during some of

those challenges is we tried to make a bet on companies that we really

felt had a great product offering.

We felt we're going to be long term partners.

So listen, I'll be honest.

Back in 2008, we had to, we had to delay some invoicing and some billing.

Like it got pretty scary for a while.

We were like, Oh boy.

But we looked at the companies that we really wanted to bet on.

And we said, listen, we're going to be a good partner.

We're going to stand with them through some of those challenges and it

made all the difference, you know, as far as us continuing to grow.

And I think that's one of the things you can look at, some of

the challenges or potential future headwinds in the marketplace to

say, listen, let's look at this.

Let's take a long term perspective on our customers.

Let's not just like, look at that short term perspective.

Let's take that long term approach.

And I think it's really kind of the way we think about our business now as well.

couldn't agree more.

Um, I think a lot of FinTech companies today are forced, unfortunately, to take

a short term perspective because they're venture funded and they're burning capital

what I love about what you said is like, Hey, true growth, a company like Galileo

that has had true growth and a successful asset and is continuing to grow today,

aligns with how to help support your customers and partners and not take

strategic bets on everyone in the industry, but understanding their

business model and understanding the ones that actually have

a line of sight to impact and differentiation and product market fit.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Colton, you're, you're spot on one

thing that I think you've touched on.

That's exactly the way that we think about it.

So being there as a partner and kind of where the, where

we can lend our experience,

with our program management partners that are trying to grow their business.

You know, we've been fortunate to work with some of the leading FinTech

companies in the world and being able to take some of the experience.

Now again, not disclosing anything that you can't through an NDA.

So let's be really clear about like take from one and like put it over But really

looking at some of the best practices.

That we found with some of these companies, because, yes,

I think you're exactly right.

And so often, some of these are looking at, well, what's my cash burn rate?

what am I doing as far as my revenue?

Critically important, We really think of ourselves as like FinTech

consultants is really helping companies through this journey to

say, yes, we under, we can help you.

Maybe you shouldn't do this.

Maybe you should try this.

Some of the things that we look at again, so you can truly say this

is an idea that's adding value and not just in the short term, but

really is something that, you know, kind of the mid to long term value.

And we've seen that time and time again with companies in our space, like

great companies, like another one, like company, like Greenlight, they kind

of pioneered this parent teen space.

When I met with them, they had five or six employees.

Like we drew out the texts on technology shaky whiteboard in their offices in

the Georgia FinTech campus in Atlanta.

And, you know, they barely raised over a million dollars.

And now you look at them and they're one of the leading kind of FinTechs here

in the United States, as far as, you know, offering that type of construct.

And that's, I think, just a great story of how we were able to kind of work with that

company and take them along this journey.

as I, as I, I, hear you talk about all of these different

approaches being very consultative and it, play the marketplace today.

It seems like there's a there's a sea of sameness going on but

at the same time, there there are differentiators within those spaces

when when you look at at Galileo and and how you're coming to market.

we've got.

you've got.

The banking functionality, you've got the card issuing side of the house.

You've got the lending piece of it.

You've got the risk tools, which are second to none in the industry.

How are you guys delivering to the market?

A message and the tools to really differentiate yourselves from all of

these, uh, Extremely niche areas and each one of those specific areas,

because there's not really, from my perspective, one company that directly

competes across the board with you guys.

It's, it's a bunch of

individual companies.

So I would love to understand the differentiation that you guys

are, are communicating of, of the benefit of having that all

under one

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Yeah, you're, you're spot on Tedd.

You know, it's been very interesting to look at again, Galileo's journey.

And then as you think about SoFi, our parent company acquisition of Technicist,

which is now part of part of Galileo.

With their modern banking core.

And that was a very key decision that was made to do just kind of

Tedd, as you were talking about.

It's very interesting to see FinTech is for right or for wrong.

I think kind of littered with very niche types of players and companies.

And we've decided and took a kind of a different approach.

And I think that we're seeing it play out in the marketplace where

a lot of these lines are starting to blur or kind of blend together.

And it's why we decided to say, listen, let's look not only

from a payment perspective.

Listen, I can talk all day long on why Galileo Galileo's payment

processing is the best company around.

You can tell I'm passionate about it.

I've been there for 20 years.

Love, love the company, but also then kind of looking at, as we think about

the other side of this, now let's talk about the FIs because again,

banking and payments don't happen

without great financial institutions and the technology that needs to power that.

And so one of the things that we, we did is we made, again, the

strategic bet to, to really focus on a modern banking core technology.

that is one of the areas where I think what's a little bit almost scary is it is,

I'll tell you another story here quickly.

I love telling these stories,

right?

We were, we, we were at, I was at a conference a couple of years ago.

I will not name the conference, nor will I name the bank that I was talking to.

they were talking about how few programmers they really have

that still can write Cobalt

code.

Now, Cobalt was, you know, from the 50s, 60s, 70s.

Now listen, I love the 60s and 70s.

That guy was born in the 70s.

I love the music from the 70s.

I just don't want an 8 track player,

that's where a lot of this technology was built, was in that era.

And they said, We only have about five or six employees still at our company

that know how to write Cobalt code, and they're all in their late 60s or 70s.

That's a little scary.

So that was kind of just one example that's kind of core to this thesis of why

we think FinTech and banking are going to kind of blend together and why we're

so focused on using our modern banking core, our Gen 3 core to try and enable

banks to, you know, really modernize.

their core infrastructure.

And it was kind of key to this kind of our thesis that a lot of these worlds

are just going to blend together.

And we needed to have that core modernization on the banking side.

So I couldn't agree more.

when you think about FinTech innovation over the past 20 years,

a lot of it has been appendages to a legacy core infrastructure,

PFM, agri banking aggregation, online banking, mobile banking.

They're all just like bolting on to this legacy technology.

But in the end, I believe we're at a time to where.

The next wave of innovation that we haven't even thought about

as possible is ushered in as you modernize that tech stack.

So, uh, trivia point people, I, I always bring this up and I'm curious,

I want both of you to answer actually, um, going off the cuff here, uh,

because people are often shocked.

So FiServ DNA, really popular core out there within.

banks and credit unions.

What year do you think FiServ went to market with DNA?

Oh.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: I honestly think it might

be like late seventies.

I might be totally off on that.

I'm going to go 78.

Like some of those have been around for a long, long time.

I don't know, Tedd, what's your guess

Oh, see, I was even going to go further back like in, I was,

I was going to go a decade before you like 68 is the number in my

head

y'all are further back than most people.

Most people actually say like 2011, 2010, 2005.

Yeah, but, but, but Colton, it's like Scott and I have been around

this for what, two decades, two and a

some fun facts.

So

FiServ DNA is actually 1992.

but other popular cores, F I S I B S is 1980.

FiServ premier 1976, and then FiServ signature in 1983,

that runs like,

I don't know the numbers, but somewhere probably closer to

40, 45 percent of financial institutions on core infrastructure.

To your point, Scott, are relying on this legacy technology or legacy infrastructure

that has challenges innately within

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: and it's even just the well,

I think I hear Clash playing

in the background somewhere right now.

I've got, you know, like all these great great music in that era, but,

but, you know, it's interesting Colton really quick again, I think Rhett is

spot on in the way that you think about this, this kind of bolt on approach,

here's PFM, Here's maybe a buy now pay later, like these little bolt ons.

But at the end of the day, um, and the way that we think about kind of modern

banking course, we're not suggesting.

that someone does like a full rip and replace, as we like to say,

that's like taking out like every organ in the body and throwing it to

the side and put something new in.

Like, we're not suggesting that.

But we, what we do suggest is to say, listen, as you look at all these

different bolt ons, well, why don't you start by using what we like to think of

as a side car, start with running this on the side in a modern banking core.

So now we're not saying like you're driving a hundred miles down the

road and trying to change the tires.

That doesn't work, but let's try and start.

thinking about it that way.

So we can start, you know, adding features and functionalities and then

slowly coming in and changing the quirks.

but at the end of the day, you know, you look at those pictures where it's like

the house or like the garage is like on the roof and then you got this and

that at the end of the day, you're like.

We just need to bulldoze this thing.

Like this is not what it was built to do.

That's really why we think we can solve this problem by saying, here's

this modern banking core on the side.

you don't have to do it all at once.

We can slowly start doing it.

And then you can migrate and use that as the core infrastructure that you can

then use to have a modern tech stack.

the idea of moving to the modern core has really gained a lot

of traction just in the last, I'm going to say probably 24, 36 months.

where where we've seen a lot of failures, um, failure to deliver failure to launch,

probably a better way to describe it with some of these legacy platforms.

and the pace at which the modern cores, like what LoanPro is, is coming

out has come out with, with the loan side of it, what Galileo is doing

with, with the acquisition from SoFi.

And like all of these types of things that are happening are really accelerating it.

And you're seeing it.

In every aspect of financial and the financial technology spaces.

So I think we're getting ready to head into a new era of what is truly possible.

And what we used to see as limitations are now going to be

our opportunities to deliver on something brand new to people that

never thought that they could get access to these types of services.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Tedd one thing is a couple

things to think about.

I think you're spot on.

I'll share one stat that I found is fascinating.

I read an article earlier this week that McKinsey put out about about

adoption in Latin and South America of banking technology products.

In 2019.

The stat is they said they estimated between 30 to 50 percent of people

in Latin America had access to, to some type of bank account post

COVID they had it as high as 73%.

and I think of that stat and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I look at this.

And I think that, one of the things that's driving so much of this, I think getting

back to why banks need to modernize these core systems is because I think of how

FinTechs haven't made it so easy to get

these type of products,

when my 16 year old's like, dad, I need to get a bank account.

I kind of was talking to him about options.

I'm like, well, you can walk into a branch.

He's like, what?

Like walk in.

Like, what do you like?

It just blew his mind.

He's like, can't just do this on my phone.

And I think that that's why, you know, so many of these FinTechs

have driven some of these changes.

And I think that's why banks are now saying, listen,

if I'm going to compete in the future.

I need to modernize my technology stack.

I need to do these things because I know that I don't have that core

infrastructure to really offer the types of products and services and

customize those products and services in the timeframes that I need to do it.

And that's why I think we're seeing again, this kind of move to, for banks

again, to deteriorate point kind of last 24 to 36 months, starting to get

a lot more momentum with banks looking to modernize their technology stacks.

it's interesting.

You bring up Latin America,

There's a lot of new things that have come out of Latin America and

I shouldn't say come out of, but really they've embraced, right?

So Brazil, after finding that they've seen so much of unbanked becoming banked,

now the delivery of PIX, their real time payments infrastructure has just exploded.

And then you've got, you know, other central and, and Mexico, North America,

but even Mexico has seen a huge influx of banking participants because now they

have access to, to better ways for loans.

They have better ways to actually transfer the money.

They have better ways to spend the money.

and now you're, they're starting to see a transition from the cash

receipt over to more electronic methods to really move that forward,

which changes how we both in the U.S.

And elsewhere in the globe really look at how Latin America is moving forward.

And I mentioned this on another episode, but the use of cards to

to transfer money cross border.

Especially in a GPR, general purpose for loadable card has just exploded from,

from, all around the globe to use that as a method to move the money around.

And I look at, I think the, the, blessing of the card brands to leverage OCT

transactions has really accelerated that.

And that offers a completely different perspective.

And I know I just got way off on a tangent.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: love the tangent though, Tedd,

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Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: that's one of the key areas for us.

Again, as we kind of look at this evolution and where we think the

future is going, we doubled down on, on Latin and South America.

Um, really about four or five years ago, we've got offices in Mexico city.

We support a lot of the, you know, kind of leading FinTechs in, in,

in Mexico, Columbia and other parts

Of the continent, we really are bullish on everything you just said, Tedd,

because I am a big believer on remittance products, you know, the OCT transactions

and MasterCard, you know, type two transactions, all sorts of things,

you know, to be able to move funding funds in real time, it just drastically

changes the way that again, you go back and like we've talked about 10, 15

years ago, you weren't able to do real time transfers on your mobile device

to a loved one,

into a different country.

And that's one of the reasons why for us again, just seeing this

again, what we like to call the electronification of payments.

How many cash transactions were done in 2018, 2019, and some of those countries

in comparison now to the number of card or electronic transactions?

I mean, it's just hyper growth and I think you're just going to continue to see that,

as we go into the future, I guess it's one of the main reasons why, again,

the other part, like, uh, the company that, that, that was acquired Technisys,

they're based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

it's core to us, um, because right now more Galileo employees

are actually outside of the U S.

Then there are

in the U.S.

And I never would have thought of that,

pre acquisition three, four years ago.

So, I mean, that just for us again, just shows, you know, how much we're really

focused in some of those emerging markets

note, I want to double click into one thing and then we'll take

it, uh, back detour back on the path.

a lot of FinTech founders that I talked to often are like, Hey, I'm

considering international expansion.

I don't know.

And it's always this, like.

I mean, this ominous gray area of like, should I do it?

Should I not do it?

When should I do it?

Tell us like Galileo's decision to expand to Latin America and your

advice for FinTech companies on when it's the right time and how to

do it as efficiently as possible.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: I'll tell you what the way

that we've looked at it.

And what we recommend to our partners is a couple of things.

One of the 1st things we look at is, you know, what, what problem are

you solving by, by trying to expand.

I mean, that's kind of

the first thing that we ask, and if they've got a good use case to do that,

or kind of looking at some different markets, you know, we look at just

kind of some very basic questions.

I'll give you one example.

It's very challenging to expand to the EU.

There's a lot of regulation.

They are much further along and kind of payment innovation that we

typically are in the US with with all of with 3D secure and GDPR and some

of those things, but it's a challenge.

It's regulated interchange.

So you might get 30, 40 basis points at the most versus areas.

one of the things that was so fascinating about payments.

Canada doesn't have credit interchange or debit interchange.

They just have interchange where you kind of get out and you look at some of

these, you're like, Oh, maybe it's the U.

S.

That's a little messed up with all these funky interchange schedules and pin versus

signature and Durban versus non Durban and, you know, all of

these different types of things.

So I think that that's 1 of the key things that we look at is, you know, again,

what is your real business case there?

Can you make it work economically?

And then the last thing that I would say and, um, on kind of

international expansion, here's the other key thing to think of just

like kind of doing it from the U.S.

And you're like, well, we kind of can do this and service other countries.

We've made the key decisions.

Why?

We've got offices in Mexico City.

You have to really be there, right?

Boots on the street.

Now, it's not that you need to have, you know, if you're operating

it, like we operate in, you know, multiple countries in Latin America.

We don't have, um, Offices, but we've got employees and I think,

uh, 12 or 13 different countries in Latin and South America.

So we really have like boots on the street to be able to support it.

Because if not, you're just, I think you're people just kind of kid themselves.

They just kind of are doing it.

They're not fully committed to it and that, and that shows through.

And I think that that's kind of one of the other keys.

So one of the items like there are a couple card programs

that I've worked with that we're doing really, really well in the U.S.

Said, Hey, we want to go to Australia.

We want to go to New Zealand.

We want to go to Latin America.

And.

The funny part is, is that they were initially looking at the revenue

model being the same as the U.

S.

And when we started to do the revenue model in these other regions, they

realized they needed a heck of a lot more volume than they thought

they did in order to have to really move into that space and, and

actually generate positive cashflow.

Is that something you see happen a lot as well?

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: 'Yeah.

You're spot on.

And it's fascinating to look at kind of across our platform.

It's one of the reasons why I kind of coming back, like, it's really fun to

work with all these different types of companies, different constructs, consumer,

commercial, debit, credit, U.S., Latin America, and look at the variation because

what you've said there, Tedd is spot on.

Look at just like average transaction sizes.

Well, in the U S the average transaction size on a consumer debit card, you

can almost set your watch by it.

It's about $40.

I mean, seriously, you can almost set your watch by it.

In Latin America.

It's about 25.

Interchange rates are different.

So now you look at this and you're like, oh, okay.

So my model in the U.S.

Is not the same model as it is.

And can I can I get enough cardholders that are going to do enough transactions

with with enough with a larger, you know, enough average ticket size

to generate enough interchange.

To have these make sense.

It's also one of the things, you know, kind of getting back, you know, LoanPro

does an amazing job in the credit space.

Here's the other thing that's kind of fascinating.

A lot of these countries, like in Mexico is an example.

It's a lot easier to launch a credit product than it is a debit product.

It's the exact

Opposite from the U.S.

The U.S.

It's typically maybe a little easier to launch a debit product There's not quite

as many moving pieces as there are on credit But it's the exact opposite for

especially from a regulatory perspective in mexico So there's those types of things

as you look at like country by country

very specific things and then like you mentioned PIX in brazil.

I mean Brazil is, it's almost, I know it's in South America, it's almost should be

like its own continent because it's got what, you know, 200 million ish people.

And they have a very, very specific payment system and every transaction

there has to be available for an installment transaction.

It's like all of these are just installments.

You're just like, you, I can literally buy a pack of gum and turn

that into an installment product.

And the answer is

you can buy a pack of gum and turn that into an installment product.

So.

I know

you

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: if

should,

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: you should, but

you can.

We could talk about a national expansion, but like what I take

away from that, right, is if you're going to do it, don't do it half assed, uh,

actually get into it, put boots, people on the ground and actually do it and two.

Understand the differences in your business model, that it doesn't always

translate one for one over as you expand.

And I think those are two awesome, points for any company looking

for, um, international expansion, especially FinTech because there's

so much regulatory nuances and all of those nuances you got to consider.

one of the, one of the things that, that was, may not be

blatantly apparent for a lot of the folks that are watching and

listening is that, This requires you to approach things from a very

empathetic, customer centric experience.

And you have to be extremely innovative in that.

that is something that I see as being super important that has

changed, really, in the last decade of it just has to work this way to

here's how we need to deliver it.

I have a unique question for you, Scott.

I want to understand the really cool customer centric experiences

that are powered by Galileo.

what are some of your customers that are doing just like

extremely personalized stuff on Galileo that you think is just

like, man, this is awesome?

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: I think there's a few things

that we do that are really cool.

That are like, you know, very specific customized experience.

I'll talk about a couple of, of the products that I think are really cool.

there's some, some really cool specific things that we do in buy

now pay later that we call it, you know, buy now pay later post pay.

Here's what that means.

Let's say if you do 10 transactions in a month and you get your statement

or you're looking online at your statement, whatever it is, and you look

and you sit and you're like, you know what, that transaction number three

and number seven, I want to make that actually an installment after the fact.

It's being able to offer like really, really cool types of, of experiences

like that, that are like laser focused, but are fantastic when you look at the

ability to be like, okay, I want to be able to enable that type of experience.

To say, yeah, I can now allow someone to say after the fact I

can make that into an installment.

Another one That's interesting.

Um, and again, it's some of the ways we partner with with LoanPro but we've got

we've got customers who Again, i'll kind of go back look one one example Maybe

they want to do a parent teen program and they want to be able to say again

like my 16 year old I want him to be able to eat at chipotle that's three or

four blocks away from my house But not necessarily 30 blocks from my house.

So that we can, you know, with our technology, make it very specific

to where that card can only be used at Chipotle store number 1,

2, 3, 7, not 1, 2, 3, 6, et cetera.

And getting laser laser focus with what we call our account level controls

and the use of our auth API as well.

You can do it a few different ways from a technology perspective, but using these

account controls to be laser specific.

Down to the merchant ID, the merchant name, we can get, so you can get

down to a terminal ID, not that you'd ever necessarily need to do that.

But there's things like that, that we can do that are like so specific that

really enable these kind of great, great use cases across platform.

One of the things, Scott, that we've talked a lot about is increased

personalization, and what that looks like in the ecosystem and the need.

I believe modernizing your infrastructure allows you to

drive personalization and finance.

To the level of one.

And that's where like your son who wanted to open up a bank account.

That's what he expects because that's what he gets from Netflix, Spotify,

and, Apple and all these brands of like, here's a recommendation, an actual

personalized recommendation that makes sense for me and based on my behavior.

And those are the types of things and products that I think Galileo,

LoanPro, other folks are, are going out in the market and trying to drive

forward within financial services

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Yeah.

I I'll touch on a couple of things.

I think you're spot on as you look at kind of the way we think about

personalization, it's just absolutely in our DNA of the way that we've built our

system, our corporate hierarchy structures and the way that we think about it.

One of the areas that why I think we've been so successful is our

architecture and hierarchy allows for again, personalization to

the individual level, right?

We don't just say, oh, Like on the card side, well, every, every

person is part of this bin has to have the exact same, you know,

fees limits, you know, all

these types of experiences.

It's just like 1 big bucket.

We can be very, very specific down to like, different levels in our system.

Like, we think about programs.

We think about products and then underneath that we.

Go all the way down to individual accounts, and that's honestly one of

the reasons why I think we've we've continued to be able to work with so

many great FinTechs because that's so key to what they want to do is

being able to deliver personalized,

experiences personalized feature functionality.

At the individual customer card holder level, and it goes back a

little bit to what we're talking about earlier about modern banking course.

It's 1 of the reasons why I think that banks are

struggled, especially over the last 3, 4, 5 years in delivering these types

of products and services, because it gets back to what we've talked about.

They're bolting things on here or there, but at the end of the day, they

don't have the right infrastructure To really personalize something for

Tedd versus Colton versus Scott.

And I think that that's where it gets hard because the core infrastructure

doesn't support that, which is again, back to the thesis of this is why

banks ultimately need to modernize their infrastructure to be able to

provide those personalized experiences.

And it's native within the architecture, not just like the, the

user experience or like a customized, you know, marketing campaign.

I mean, those are easy.

we're talking about being able to offer this functionality at the

core level of the system to then be able to permeate that throughout

the entire product offering.

What you make me think of as you talk about this, Scott, is years ago,

I'm not going to say how many years ago,

I worked on a project around healthcare's auto substantiation of being able to

use, let's say, an HSA cards only.

On the items that qualified, and then I also worked with a couple of the snap

programs to do a very similar process

looking

at that.

It sounds like what you're talking about is taking.

That personal that that level of detail over to not a can I or can't I.

But what can I do with that individual line item?

What can I decide to do with that piece of it?

And I think that, and Colton, we've talked about this a little

bit on the episodes as well.

It's like, this is an area that I think that's the next level of personalization

that we're really going to be seeing.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: It's interesting.

Tedd, Colton, I, we have some partners that are doing some

phenomenal work in this kind of SKU level or basket level data.

So, you know, again, you've had a lot of experience in that space, specifically

on HSA side, and, Uh, there's some really, really, really, really cool

stuff that's being developed now.

Again, it requires kind of the broader payment infrastructure.

Like, we've got part of the solution on our side, but we're

not necessarily acquiring the transaction at Walmart or Target

and saying, oh, you can buy bananas.

You can buy bread.

but you can't do the beer and cigarettes.

Okay.

This is going to be not, not part of this, this type of, of, of healthcare program.

But there's some really cool partners that we work on work with right now.

That have developed some really, really innovative solutions there.

I think that one in particular is an area where you're going to

continue to see more and more of.

So we kind of think about the future.

You're going to see a lot more programs using this kind of laser

specific type of technology to be able to get down to that level.

Instead of again, just like this.

This massive, like you can, you know, kind of just block an MCC.

I mean, that stuff's like, again, that's really kind of

antiquated when you think about it.

So this is where now you're, you're looking at this to say, yeah, now we

can really, really specific down to again, like basket or SKU level data.

shameless plug.

But that's 1 of the reasons why we're stoked about our, our collaboration.

What we're doing with Galileo, LoanPro's developed what we call transaction

level credit, the ability to charge interest rates at the transaction

level, and you can build really unique credit programs with that.

I don't know if we brought it up on the podcast, Tedd, but we've

talked for a while about an active military duty card where when

military member goes on deployment for

family back home, you geofence a five mile radius around their house.

And any gas and groceries are at a reduced

2 percent interest rate.

For any emotional wellness purchases on the card.

Uh, their interest abated for the time of deployment.

And think about that little personalization, the loyalty

that that in turn drives

an

increased share of wallet.

Where a lot of institutions right now are, Scott, you brought it up.

Cost of capital is up.

Deposits are king.

How do I drive greater deposits?

You drive greater deposits, in my opinion, by launching personalized products and

people being like, man, I'm going to move more of my financial life over to

XYZ institution because they get me.

They get who I am and they can help me drive and succeed in my life.

you talk about that program, Colton, it gives me chills for the simple

fact that I remember when I, I was.

In the, in service, it was complete opposite.

it.

was like, how can we charge the most interest?

How can we take the most advantage of the service members?

Because there were laws put in place that basically said, if you get a

loan as a service member, guess what?

You can never

escape it.

doesn't matter.

You can never escape it.

And so that was.

That made a lot of us really scared to do any sort of loans because we didn't

know, are we going to get taken advantage?

Are we not?

And it wasn't just the, shady folks that

were loan sharky style guys.

I mean, this was happening for major financial institutions that

were really leaning heavy into it.

So it made us all really scared.

is one of the things

that.

really started to pull me into the financial services industry is

like, how, how is this happening?

How can this happen?

And that's what really pulled

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: That's a fascinating

me in.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: I love the use case that you're

talking about as far as the solutions that LoanPro brings to the table.

I mean, this is one of the things that got us excited about our partnership.

Colton and Tedd is this exact use case.

And if you can do,

flexible interest rates down at the transaction level, and

just, just let that sink in.

All of the various use cases, but certainly in supporting, you

know, our, our military personnel.

And you think of being able to do that and all the other types of use cases.

That's the way that we think about it as well as to say, listen, this

is where it gets laser focused.

This is what moves the needle.

I'm being able to do those very, very specific onto our per transaction basis.

That's again, where I think the future of this is going to be.

And I, that's why, again, I think one of LoanPro's technologies

is fantastic in this area.

it.

So we're talking about all these really cool upcoming new stuff.

I wanted to transition into the

Let's do it.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

We're talking about.

the future here.

I, was just going to say, like, we've been talking about that active

military duty card for a while.

If, if no one actually launches that card, I'm going to go start

my own business, my own credit card company and go launch it because I

know it will work, And

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: idea.

I know there's lots of impact there, but, um,

let's talk about the future.

Tedd, let's jump into it.

I want you to, uh, hop in Doc Brown's DeLorean, go to the future,

come back and let us know what you see happening in FinTech, banking,

lending in the next five to 10 years.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: You got to look back to the future,

but I think, you know, as we think about it, you know, I'm amazed we've

made it this far into the podcast or discussion without actually

bringing up AI and machine learning.

it seems like that's on everybody's mind right now.

as I think about, you know, kind of the future, where is this going?

I can't, I can't help but say, how are we going to think

about AI and machine learning?

And I'll give you kind of a couple of examples of areas where we're playing

today and where we just think this is going to continue to increase.

one of the products that we have is, is a machine learning AI chatbot.

Um, that we've built a product called Connecta that's really

kind of more of an empathy engine.

And we've already seen, you know, a number of banks that use this

and it's, it's really interesting to see how well this works.

So when you test it out, it's like, it can really sense when you are getting

more frustrated and can kind of drop you right into a customer service queue.

It's amazing to see kind of that aspect of AI and machine learning.

I think you're going to see more of that.

But another area where I think you're going to see just continued focus in this

getting better and better is, again, you talked, I think, at the beginning, Tedd or

Colton mentioned kind of where we, where we're at in our, in our risk mitigation,

our payment risk platform is our product.

this is really, as you think about areas of our platform, one of the

key areas where our program managers and our customers are saving a

lot of money because they've been implementing this over the last

year, year and a half, 2 years.

And it just continues to get better and better.

The way that this really works is we're able to, look at spending patterns,

look at modeling, look at behaviors, look at geofencing, some of these

areas to really, really mitigate the fraud that's done on a card portfolio.

we typically see, and I think Visa and MasterCard have published some

similar numbers and kind of an average card portfolio might have.

8, 9, 10, 11, 12 basis points of fraud loss.

If you're running, you know, Mastercards or Visas neural net at their level,

which card programs do, and then run our payment risk platform underneath it.

We're seeing fraud losses down into the three, four, five basis point level.

So it's an immediate cost savings.

But then the other thing that's got us so excited about the future is also

now think about the cost savings of now someone's not having to call into customer

service to actually dispute the charge.

Because that never even happened.

And now you don't have the cost of the, of then submitting the charge back

and going through that and the back and forth of Visa and MasterCard and

the merchant on these transactions.

And so that's an area where we really think you're just going to continue

to see more and more innovation using AI and machine learning kind of across

the payment and banking landscape.

I love that.

I knew we knew you were going to bring up AI.

It's been brought up in every single episode, with differing opinions.

Tedd, what we should probably do is clip together everyone's perspective

of AI, and we do a clip on like all

unique perspectives of AI.

I appreciate, and I agree, like the two biggest things, the three

biggest things that I hear are.

As I asked, like, what does the future look like?

It's AI, obviously, fraud is still a big problem.

how do you decrease fraud?

What does that look like?

And then the third is, increased focus on small business and, and small

business banking, small business credit.

how do you serve the small business customer?

Because some organizations serve them like a consumer.

Which they are kind of a consumer, but not really a consumer.

And some serve them like a commercial client and they're kind of a commercial

client, but not really, they're this middle ground that we've kind

of like left in this gray area.

in closing, there is one last question I had actually, because I personally

think that one of the most value on this podcast is, uh, I hear from my, uh,

FinTech, uh, founder and tech friends on like, Hey, I want to understand.

Unique insights that I can take and apply into my business to be successful.

as much as you can, Scott, walk us through, the transition of, the

acquisition with SoFi and like what that looks and like insights and

learnings from that process, because SoFi is a financial institution, but a

very different financial institution.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: It's a great question, Colton.

And I think it's interesting again, kind of, we touched on the beginning, like, I

think of like kind of the evolution of my experience at Galileo and really, going

from like a true startup now to where we had, the acquisition in 2020 by SoFi.

They're a regulated banking entity.

So we're now part.

Of a bank holding company.

So one of the things that's so just fascinating to go through is not

only from kind of like me putting out like, Oh my gosh, there's water

coming into the data center to now, like, how do we stay compliant, you

know, across everything that we do.

And I actually think it's one of the kind of key learnings that

we've had as a business is using all of the experience that SoFi

as a financial institution now as a lender.

have brought to the table to kind of give us a different

perspective.

we were fortunate enough to partner with SoFi back in

2018 from the processing side.

But now when we got acquired and looking at this, they've brought

an entire different kind of view for us in the marketplace.

And I think that that's something that's really key to us now.

And it's why, again, we're so focused on financial institutions is because we

will always consider ourselves the AWS of FinTech, but oh my gosh, it's opened

our eyes into all this opportunity, within the financial institution space.

And that's probably the key kind of learning that we have is how

much opportunity we have in that, in that side of the business.

the importance of being adaptable, right?

We've seen lots of acquisitions go poorly.

and we've seen lots of acquisitions go well, right?

And one of the key differences I see on my side is.

The ability of the FinTech who's being acquired to be adaptable

but where there's extreme resistance, often it doesn't work nearly as

well as it does before.

So Scott, thank you for the insights.

Really, really appreciate it.

Scott Johnson, Galileo Financial Technologies: Well,

thank you, Colton.

I appreciate it.

It's always nice when, when the company that acquires you has an NFL stadium in

Los Angeles, so that never hurts, right?

Let's, let's be honest here, right?

That never hurts.

So that's always helpful in the process.

No, it's been fantastic working with SoFi, but,

Tedd, Colton, thank you very much.

I really appreciate your time today.

It's, it's been, uh, been a lot of fun.

Um, I learned a lot, great to always talk about Galileo.

You can see I'm very passionate about it.

So it's been a lot of fun today.

that is another episode of Accrued, a FinTech Confidential

series presented to you by LoanPro.

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